The Seimas rejected the proposal to feed all primary school children for free

At the submission stage, the project did not receive approval, 43 members of the Seimas voted for it, 27 were against, 28 abstained. The Seimas did not agree to return the project to the initiators for improvement, it was rejected.

According to R. Šalaševičiūtė’s calculations, free lunches for third- and fourth-grade students would require a maximum of 20 million annually. “I don’t think that this is a very large amount,” said R. Šalaševičiūtė from the podium of the Seimas.

However, this did not convince the parliamentarians. “There are no free lunches, not even for third- and fourth-graders,” remarked the chairman of the Social Security and Labor Committee of the Seimas Justas Dziugelisafter asking where to get this amount.

In his opinion, this is a classic example of irresponsible politics, when expectations are created for the population, but no one is told where to get the money from.

“I invite you to disapprove of this genre of populism, because it is not specified from where to cut those 20 million. euros”, J. Džiugelis said at the Seimas meeting.

According to Seimas member R. Šalaševičiūtė, legalizing free meals for third- and fourth-graders would reduce the social and emotional gap between elementary school students.

At the moment, schoolchildren of preschool age and primary – first and second – grades are fed free of charge. At that time, third and fourth graders were not entitled to free lunch.